Category - Orchestra Life

1
How to do hearing protection right
2
Friends come and go…
3
Someone else discovers gender discrimination in orchestras
4
Is tenure good for musicians?
5
Armistice Day
6
Looking for Perfection in an Imperfect Process
7
Technology and the Orchestra
8
It’s A Pitch
9
Be An Entrepreneur! Get Outside Your Comfort Zone!
10
A Disgusting New Low

How to do hearing protection right

Nov 23 2014
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Robert Levine
Robert Levine

Robert Levine has been the Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony since September 1987. Before coming to Milwaukee Mr. Levine had been a member of the Orford String Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Toronto, with whom he toured extensively throughout Canada, the United States, and South America. Prior to joining the Orford Quartet, Mr. Levine had served as Principal Violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for six years. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, and the Oklahoma City Symphony, as well as serving as guest principal with the orchestras of Indianapolis and Hong Kong.

He has performed as soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, the Midsummer Mozart Festival (San Francisco), and numerous community orchestras in Northern California and Minnesota. He has also been featured on American Public Radio's nationally broadcast show "St. Paul Sunday Morning" on several occasions.

Mr. Levine has been an active chamber musician, having performed at the Festival Rolandseck in Germany, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Palm Beach Festival, the "Strings in the Mountains" Festival in Colorado, and numerous concerts in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee. He has also been active in the field of new music, having commissioned and premiered works for viola and orchestra from Minnesota composers Janika Vandervelde and Libby Larsen.

Mr. Levine was chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians from 1996 to 2002 and currently serves as President of the Milwaukee Musicians Association, Local 8 of the American Federation of Musicians, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestras. He has written extensively about issues concerning orchestra musicians for publications of ICSOM, the AFM, the Symphony Orchestra Institute, and the League of American Orchestras.

Mr. Levine attended Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Switzerland. His primary teachers were Aaron Sten and Pamela Goldsmith. He also studied with Paul Doctor, Walter Trampler, Bruno Giuranna, and David Abel.

He lives with his wife Emily and his son Sam in Glendale.

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Music Medicine, Orchestra Life

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There’s always talk about hearing protection, but I’ve heard of remarkably little action by orchestras on the subject. So this came as welcome news:  A program to protect Queensland Symphony Orchestra players in Australia from hearing loss is producing encouraging results, according to a new study. Sophisticated analyses of sound dynamics in concert halls led[…]

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Friends come and go…

Nov 21 2014
Browse archives for November 21, 2014
Robert Levine
Robert Levine

Robert Levine has been the Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony since September 1987. Before coming to Milwaukee Mr. Levine had been a member of the Orford String Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Toronto, with whom he toured extensively throughout Canada, the United States, and South America. Prior to joining the Orford Quartet, Mr. Levine had served as Principal Violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for six years. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, and the Oklahoma City Symphony, as well as serving as guest principal with the orchestras of Indianapolis and Hong Kong.

He has performed as soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, the Midsummer Mozart Festival (San Francisco), and numerous community orchestras in Northern California and Minnesota. He has also been featured on American Public Radio's nationally broadcast show "St. Paul Sunday Morning" on several occasions.

Mr. Levine has been an active chamber musician, having performed at the Festival Rolandseck in Germany, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Palm Beach Festival, the "Strings in the Mountains" Festival in Colorado, and numerous concerts in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee. He has also been active in the field of new music, having commissioned and premiered works for viola and orchestra from Minnesota composers Janika Vandervelde and Libby Larsen.

Mr. Levine was chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians from 1996 to 2002 and currently serves as President of the Milwaukee Musicians Association, Local 8 of the American Federation of Musicians, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestras. He has written extensively about issues concerning orchestra musicians for publications of ICSOM, the AFM, the Symphony Orchestra Institute, and the League of American Orchestras.

Mr. Levine attended Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Switzerland. His primary teachers were Aaron Sten and Pamela Goldsmith. He also studied with Paul Doctor, Walter Trampler, Bruno Giuranna, and David Abel.

He lives with his wife Emily and his son Sam in Glendale.

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Learning From Mistakes, Orchestra Life

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Many years ago I had a colleague who used to say “friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.” It stuck with me, that saying. On the way home from a dinner party at this colleague’s house, my wife Emily remarked “did you notice how often he said ‘they used to be friends of ours’?” I’ve[…]

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Someone else discovers gender discrimination in orchestras

Nov 20 2014
Browse archives for November 20, 2014
Robert Levine
Robert Levine

Robert Levine has been the Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony since September 1987. Before coming to Milwaukee Mr. Levine had been a member of the Orford String Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Toronto, with whom he toured extensively throughout Canada, the United States, and South America. Prior to joining the Orford Quartet, Mr. Levine had served as Principal Violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for six years. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, and the Oklahoma City Symphony, as well as serving as guest principal with the orchestras of Indianapolis and Hong Kong.

He has performed as soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, the Midsummer Mozart Festival (San Francisco), and numerous community orchestras in Northern California and Minnesota. He has also been featured on American Public Radio's nationally broadcast show "St. Paul Sunday Morning" on several occasions.

Mr. Levine has been an active chamber musician, having performed at the Festival Rolandseck in Germany, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Palm Beach Festival, the "Strings in the Mountains" Festival in Colorado, and numerous concerts in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee. He has also been active in the field of new music, having commissioned and premiered works for viola and orchestra from Minnesota composers Janika Vandervelde and Libby Larsen.

Mr. Levine was chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians from 1996 to 2002 and currently serves as President of the Milwaukee Musicians Association, Local 8 of the American Federation of Musicians, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestras. He has written extensively about issues concerning orchestra musicians for publications of ICSOM, the AFM, the Symphony Orchestra Institute, and the League of American Orchestras.

Mr. Levine attended Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Switzerland. His primary teachers were Aaron Sten and Pamela Goldsmith. He also studied with Paul Doctor, Walter Trampler, Bruno Giuranna, and David Abel.

He lives with his wife Emily and his son Sam in Glendale.

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Hiring and Firing, Labor law, Orchestra Life

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Long-time readers of this blog might remember an article I wrote in 2009 on the subject of discrimination in orchestras. I thought at the time that my survey of the rosters of ICSCOM orchestras demonstrated a marked differential between the number of men and women, especially in principal positions. Someone else has done much the[…]

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Is tenure good for musicians?

Nov 18 2014
Browse archives for November 18, 2014
Robert Levine
Robert Levine

Robert Levine has been the Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony since September 1987. Before coming to Milwaukee Mr. Levine had been a member of the Orford String Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Toronto, with whom he toured extensively throughout Canada, the United States, and South America. Prior to joining the Orford Quartet, Mr. Levine had served as Principal Violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for six years. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, and the Oklahoma City Symphony, as well as serving as guest principal with the orchestras of Indianapolis and Hong Kong.

He has performed as soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, the Midsummer Mozart Festival (San Francisco), and numerous community orchestras in Northern California and Minnesota. He has also been featured on American Public Radio's nationally broadcast show "St. Paul Sunday Morning" on several occasions.

Mr. Levine has been an active chamber musician, having performed at the Festival Rolandseck in Germany, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Palm Beach Festival, the "Strings in the Mountains" Festival in Colorado, and numerous concerts in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee. He has also been active in the field of new music, having commissioned and premiered works for viola and orchestra from Minnesota composers Janika Vandervelde and Libby Larsen.

Mr. Levine was chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians from 1996 to 2002 and currently serves as President of the Milwaukee Musicians Association, Local 8 of the American Federation of Musicians, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestras. He has written extensively about issues concerning orchestra musicians for publications of ICSOM, the AFM, the Symphony Orchestra Institute, and the League of American Orchestras.

Mr. Levine attended Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Switzerland. His primary teachers were Aaron Sten and Pamela Goldsmith. He also studied with Paul Doctor, Walter Trampler, Bruno Giuranna, and David Abel.

He lives with his wife Emily and his son Sam in Glendale.

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Hiring and Firing, Labor law, Orchestra Life, Orchestral Models

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An interest in the law inclines me to surf amongst the legal waves on the Internet, leading to the occasional odd discovery relevant to my day job. This post from the blog Lawyers, Guns and Money caught my eye: Recently Kyle Graham, a professor on the tenure track at Santa Clara Law School, announced on[…]

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Armistice Day

Nov 12 2014
Browse archives for November 12, 2014
Robert Levine
Robert Levine

Robert Levine has been the Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony since September 1987. Before coming to Milwaukee Mr. Levine had been a member of the Orford String Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Toronto, with whom he toured extensively throughout Canada, the United States, and South America. Prior to joining the Orford Quartet, Mr. Levine had served as Principal Violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for six years. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, and the Oklahoma City Symphony, as well as serving as guest principal with the orchestras of Indianapolis and Hong Kong.

He has performed as soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, the Midsummer Mozart Festival (San Francisco), and numerous community orchestras in Northern California and Minnesota. He has also been featured on American Public Radio's nationally broadcast show "St. Paul Sunday Morning" on several occasions.

Mr. Levine has been an active chamber musician, having performed at the Festival Rolandseck in Germany, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Palm Beach Festival, the "Strings in the Mountains" Festival in Colorado, and numerous concerts in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee. He has also been active in the field of new music, having commissioned and premiered works for viola and orchestra from Minnesota composers Janika Vandervelde and Libby Larsen.

Mr. Levine was chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians from 1996 to 2002 and currently serves as President of the Milwaukee Musicians Association, Local 8 of the American Federation of Musicians, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestras. He has written extensively about issues concerning orchestra musicians for publications of ICSOM, the AFM, the Symphony Orchestra Institute, and the League of American Orchestras.

Mr. Levine attended Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Switzerland. His primary teachers were Aaron Sten and Pamela Goldsmith. He also studied with Paul Doctor, Walter Trampler, Bruno Giuranna, and David Abel.

He lives with his wife Emily and his son Sam in Glendale.

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Orchestra Life, The Apocalypse

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Yesterday was Veterans Day in the United States. But, in Great Britain, Canada, most of the Commonwealth countries, and several European nations, it’s known by an older name – Armistice Day. And originally it commemorated the end of World War I at 11:00 AM on November 11, 1918. Veterans Day is taken seriously in the[…]

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Looking for Perfection in an Imperfect Process

Oct 20 2014
Browse archives for October 20, 2014
Kayleigh Miller
Kayleigh Miller

Kayleigh Miller, a recent addition to the San Antonio Symphony, enjoys a varied career of teaching, performing, and yoga instruction. She previously played in the National Arts Centre Orchestra as an apprentice, and was a member in the Nightingale String Quartet in residence in Reno, Nevada. She completed her studies with Roger Tapping and Carol Rodland at the New England Conservatory and Eastman School of Music and received a dual bachelor's degree in performance and music history. She has participated in numerous festivals and masterclasses, including the Banff, Prussia Cove, and Orford masterclasses, Spoleto Festival USA, Domaine Forget, Lucerne Festival Academy, and the International Ensemble Moderne Academy workshop. She has soloed with the Eastman Philharmonia, Reno Chamber Orchestra, UNR symphony, and as a part of the Foodlink concert series in Rochester, NY. Additionally, she is a dedicated ensemble member, and has been a member of the New World Symphony, Discovery Ensemble, Reno Philharmonic, and Reno Chamber Orchestra. Kayleigh is passionate about contemporary music, and has performed in contemporary ensembles at Eastman, the New England Conservatory, and in Boston.
Kayleigh is additionally a committed educator and arts advocate, and has performed and written educational programming both nationally and beyond. She is additionally a yoga instructor and Yoga Tune Up® instructor, combining elements of physical therapy, restorative movement, and yoga into her teaching. She has completed additionally trainings in teaching yoga for children and working with cancer, and is the founder of the Musician's Health Collective, a health resource blog for musicians.

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Jayme Nelson

In my entire life as a musician, I never realized that the use of beta blockers was this wide spread. …

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Health & Wellness, Music Medicine, Orchestra Life, Performance Anxiety, Performances

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We recognize that the use of beta-blockers by musicians is a serious and controversial topic.  Nonetheless, we feel it is better to discuss it than to pretend that it doesn’t exist.  We neither condone or condemn the use of beta-blockers, but wish to have an objective discussion about its use.  Feel free to join the[…]

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Technology and the Orchestra

Oct 16 2014
Browse archives for October 16, 2014
Ann Drinan
Ann Drinan

Ann Drinan, Senior Editor, has been a member of the Hartford Symphony viola section for over 30 years. She is a former Chair of the Orchestra Committee, former member of the HSO Board, and has served on many HSO committees. She is also the Executive Director of CONCORA (CT Choral Artists), a professional chorus based in Hartford and New Britain, founded by Artistic Director Richard Coffey. Ann was a member of the Advisory Board of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (SOI), and was the HSO ROPA delegate for 14 years, serving as both Vice President and President of ROPA. In addition to playing the viola and running CONCORA, Ann is a professional writer and editor, and has worked as a consultant and technical writer for software companies in a wide variety of industries for over 3 decades. (She worked for the Yale Computer Science Department in the late 70s, and thus has been on the Internet, then called the DARPAnet, since 1977!) She is married to Algis Kaupas, a sound recordist, and lives a block from Long Island Sound in Branford CT. Together they create websites for musicians: shortbeachwebdesign.com.

Ann holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.

Read Ann Drinan's blog here. web.esm.rochester.edu/poly/author/ann-drinan

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Electronic media, Orchestra Life, The Future, Websites

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Symphony magazine featured an interesting article about how digital technologies are impacting orchestras. Written by Andy Doe, a media and technology consultant who writes about music at his blog, properdiscord.com, “The Digital Orchestra” takes us from 1994, when the New Zealand Symphony’s principal bassist Dale Gold put up a simple website, to our world of ever-increasing mobile[…]

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It’s A Pitch

Oct 06 2014
Browse archives for October 06, 2014
Michael Drapkin
Michael Drapkin

Michael Drapkin has enjoyed a career as a music performer, composer, arranger, educator, clinician and adjudicator. Following the Wall Street adage of eat what you kill, Drapkin developed his own band Yiddish Cowboys in Austin, Texas, which released a CD on iTunes. He featured them in the Classical Crossover showcase he ran for South by Southwest in 2010 and 2011, where he brought bands from around the world that are classically trained and have crossed over to the mainstream and brought their virtuosity with them. As a clarinetist, he was a member of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, as Associate Principal and Bass Clarinet and the New York City Opera Touring Company and Lake George Opera Festival, as Principal Clarinet, and has performed under conductors ranging from Leonard Bernstein to Seiji Ozawa. He has spent summers playing at Aspen and at Tanglewood as a Berkshire Music Center fellow, and was solo clarinetist and Executive Director of Music Amici, Rockland County, NY’s oldest professional chamber music group and one of the finest in the New York City area, and performed with them in Carnegie Hall. Mr. Drapkin is widely known in the bass clarinet world as author of Symphonic Repertoire for the Bass Clarinet Volumes One, Two and Three, which have become standard literature among orchestral bass clarinetists worldwide, and each fall he is a music judge and chief judge at high school marching band contests for US Bands.

Drapkin founded and presented the Brevard Conference on Music Entrepreneurship (BCOME) for two summers at the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina, attracting as attendees professional musicians, industry professionals, college music faculty and deans from as far away as Singapore. For BCOME, he was awarded $100,000 in grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation – the nation’s largest entrepreneurship foundation – and was one of their first music grantees ever. For his efforts with BCOME, Drapkin was a finalist for Best Non-Profit CEO for The Ten Awards – the “Academy Awards of New York Business,” an annual selection of ten companies and individuals in the greater New York business community that display extraordinary leadership and innovation to improve their business. He has delivered keynote speeches, lectures and master classes across the U.S. including Eastman, Juilliard, Northwestern and The University of Texas at Austin, among others.

He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Phil, the edgiest most forward thinking arts-driving orchestra in the entire planet!

Drapkin has been an active member of the College Music Society, which represents college music faculty worldwide. He is the chair of the Careers Outside the Academy Committee, his third chair appointment for CMS, and led a pre-conference seminar for them in Atlanta. He is also a member of the Board of Directors and has been a keynote speaker for their Southwest Chapter, and has made presentations at the CMS National Conference annually for the past ten years.

For more information, visit: http://www.drapkin.net

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Careers, Getting Ahead, Gigs, Orchestra Life, Professionalism, Running a Successful Business--You, Inc.

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This post first appeared in Symposium, the journal of the College Music Society.  It is reprinted here with permission. I’ve had two careers in my lifetime: as a symphony orchestra clarinetist and as a technology executive. One of the advantages these dual careers have given me has been the ability to apply my business experiences[…]

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Be An Entrepreneur! Get Outside Your Comfort Zone!

Sep 29 2014
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Yvonne Caruthers All posts from Yvonne Caruthers
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Stephen P Brown

You know, I totally agree! As many years during my youth were spent onstage as they were in the concert…

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Alternative Ensembles, Entrepreneurship, Getting Ahead, Gigs, Live Music, Orchestra Life, Paul R. Judy Center for Applied Research, Performances

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How many times have we musicians heard those phrases? Do they mean that we should try to be like Janice Martin, the violinist who plays while hanging upside down?  My most recent experience is not quite that dramatic….. “What time is the lunch break?”  I asked the stage manager, knowing that he was the one[…]

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A Disgusting New Low

Sep 23 2014
Browse archives for September 23, 2014
Scott Chamberlain

Scott has been involved in arts organizations from a variety of angles, including as a classical vocalist, arts administrator and as a board member. He has worked with such groups as the Minnesota Orchestra, One Voice Mixed Chorus and The O'Shuaghnessy, in such areas as marketing, public relations, and development. He current sings with the Minnesota Chorale, and is a member of the Chorale's Board of Directors.

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Labor law, Labor relations, Negotiation, Orchestra Life, Orchestra Management

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This post originally appeared on the blog Mask of the Flower Prince.  It is reprinted here with permission. You know, over the course of the Minnesota Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera labor disputes, I’ve seen a lot of ugly things. Managements in both the disputes resorted to hard-ball tactics and inflammatory rhetoric as part of a[…]

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